Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age: Using Learning Science to Reboot Schooling

Today’s most successful school leaders are truly “learning engineers”: creative thinkers who redefine their problems and design new ways to better serve kids’ success. Technology has a critical role, but it is the creative reinvention of schools, systems, and classrooms that has to come first. In this powerful book, bestselling author and education policy expert Rick Hess and chief learning officer Bror Saxberg show you how to become your school’s learning engineer. Using cutting-edge research about learning science as a framework, you’ll:

Identify specific learning problems that need solving;

Devise smarter ways to address them; and

Implement technology-enabled, not technology-driven, solutions.

Praise:

“Everyone touching education—from educators to school leaders and from investors and philanthropists to entrepreneurs—needs to understand how to think like a learning engineer and read this book. Technology holds unbelievable promise to be a part of the solution to transform education, but it won’t happen unless all parties attack its implementation smartly. Digital Leadership points the way forward.”–Michael B. Horn, Education Executive Director, Clayton Christensen Institute

“Hess and Saxberg cut through the ed-tech hype and identify great instruction as the key to improved learning outcomes. Teachers, as well as school and district leaders, will find in these pages an effective blueprint for trying and deploying instructional technologies that is at once deeply conceptual and entirely practical.”–Stacey Childress, Deputy Director of Education, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

“Hess and Saxberg offer a powerful read for principals as the chief ‘learning engineers’ in schools. Instructional leaders know that technology has changed the complexion of schools and classrooms, but their leadership is needed to steward its use to solve learning challenges.

Principals are becoming masters of navigating programs, gadgets, and curricula to best utilize resources. Applying the principles of learning science to these leadership competencies will deepen the level of thinking about technology, and lead to more meaningful student outcomes.

By deconstructing learning science and making the connection to technology, the authors have outlined key strategies for school leaders as they work to transform traditional practices in schools. The insights and ideas put forth by Hess and Saxberg will help principals implement myriad practices that fully realize the potential of technology and digital learning.

Whether it is whole-school reform or targeted interventions, principals will be motivated to rethink or ‘re-engineer’ the use of technology to optimize teaching and learning.”–Gail Connelly, Executive Director, National Association of Elementary School Principals

“Hess & Saxberg recognize that thoughtful use of technology in schools is not primarily technical nor technological – rather, it is human. Or, as the old cartoon character Pogo said, I have seen the enemy, and it is me. Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age is a must-read for education leaders who want to harness the possibility of new tools, and do so in a thoughtful way that makes a difference for learning.”–Keith Krueger, CEO, Consortium for School Networking (CoSN)

“This book provides powerful insight into why state, civic, and system leaders should rethink policies, practices, and procedures related to technology and its usage in our classrooms. Too often, our current structures fail to promote and support learning engineering. Rick Hess and Bror Saxberg have designed a compelling guide for the road ahead.”–William Hite, Superintendent, School District of Philadelphia